Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office detectives have arrested a suspect accused of stripping copper downspouts of homes in Old Metairie. Sean Boudreaux, 20, of Metairie was arrested after his mother identified him in video surveillance camera footage from a victim's residence, according to arrest reports.

"That's great. I'm so happy to hear that," said Michal Lappa, the resident whose cameras caught the suspect in action. "It appears he has hit this neighborhood more than one time. He's very brazen to do this in broad daylight."

Thieves have been known to loot wiring, downspouts and other pieces of copper-made parts from residences, churches and even power stations. They sell the metal to scrap yards for cash. The Sheriff's Office has recently received a number of complaints regarding the theft of copper downspouts, especially in the Old Metairie area.

Boudreaux is accused of looting downspouts from two residences on West William David Parkway, a house on Hector Avenue and a fourth house on Rosa Drive, according to incident reports. The first reported thefts occurred on Dec. 15. Neighbors on West William David Parkway contacted the Sheriff's Office after someone ripped about 15 feet of copper downspouts worth about $500 from their residences.

One of the victims was home at the time of the theft, just before 9 a.m. He told deputies he rushed outside after hearing loud noises and spotted an stranger calmly folding up his copper downspouts and driving away, the incident report said. The victim wasn't able to get the suspect's license plate number.

Lappa was out of town when the thief came calling at his Hector Avenue residence on Jan. 23. But a neighbor saw the suspect steal the downspout, then abandon it when he realized it was made of aluminum, not copper, the incident report said.

Lappa's surveillance cameras were recording as the suspect inspected the downspouts of two neighbors before decided to pillage his. "He looked at two houses and decided they weren't made of copper, and he went to my house and decided it was," Lappa said.

Investigators didn't get a break in the case until Monday when the suspect tried to steal copper downspouts from a home in the 200 block of Rosa Avenue around 4:30 a.m. An alert neighbor spotted the thief and confronted him, the arrest report said. The suspect fled, but not before the neighbor could take down the license plate number.

Investigators used the information to track down the vehicle, which was registered to Boudreaux's mother, the arrest report said. She told deputies her son was driving the vehicle at the time the theft occurred. Investigators had Boudreaux's mother view the surveillance footage, and she positively identified her son in the video, the arrest report said. She also identified the suspect vehicle seen in the footage.

Investigators took Boudreaux into custody Tuesday. He told detectives he didn't recall stealing a downspout from the Hector Avenue house. But he admitted to taking downspouts from other homes in the area, the arrest report said.

Boudreaux, of 3029 Edenborn Ave., Metairie, was arrested Wednesday and booked with four counts of theft. He was released the same day from the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna on a $10,000 bond.